The second part of our study “Neutralizing Russia’s destructive influence on the mobilization process in Ukraine: retrospective analysis and the strategy of partial military service as a long-term solution”. The first part is available at this linkand the second part is available here.
An important clarification:
- To collect the information that became the basis for the study of Russian influence on the mobilization process, special software based on artificial intelligence was mainly used. The methodology, verification and processing tools are not disclosed in this publication. They are provided to partners in the security and defense sector.
- Some of the collected and available materials are not published, but have been transferred to the relevant services of the Security and Defense Sector (and have been transferred since June 2022).
- We also note that everything you read below, especially the analysis and conclusions, are our subjective opinions and cannot serve as a basis for defamation charges. Wherever possible, we provide links to information from open sources, and the conclusions we draw may be erroneous.
- At the time of publication, these materials were submitted to the relevant government agencies for review and response.
Failure of mobilization (2024)
The year began with high-profile scandals, when a crowd of provoked mostly women blocked the cars of TCC employees and threw their fists at them. Although such events began in the fall of 2023, the most resonant were the events first in Berezne and then in Kosmach.
The first high-profile incident was in Berezne, Rivne region, at the end of January 2024. Stakhiv’s group organized a provocation there around the case of a local resident, Vasyl Pleskach, who claimed that TCC employees had illegally detained him and used physical force after serving him with a summons. After Pleskach’s release, Stakhiv’s team launched an active campaign, filing complaints with law enforcement agencies, mobilizing local residents, and organizing violent actions, including an invasion of the SBI building.
On January 30, the situation escalated during an attempt by the Berezny city authorities to hold a dialogue between the community and representatives of the TCC. Stakhiv’s supporters used this meeting to provoke a new conflict, which further escalated the confrontation between the local community and the mobilization authorities.
The incident in Kosmach in early February 2024 clearly demonstrated how disinformation and organized provocations lead to real violence. On February 5, TCC employees arrived in the village to serve summonses. According to local residents, attempts to serve the summonses to a father with many children and a person with a disability caused the first tension between the community and TCC representatives.
The next day, the situation escalated when the head of the district military commissariat, Lieutenant Colonel Serhiy Melnyk, who had combat experience and was wounded, arrived in the village. Despite his assurances not to hold mobilization activities until the end of the week, an anonymous message in a local Viber group about an alleged “raid” provoked a spontaneous protest.
Several dozen women organized a “checkpoint” near a local gas station. The situation got out of control when they stopped the car of a local resident Ivanna Hrepyniak, suspecting her of filming the protesters and collaborating with the TCC. The conflict escalated into physical violence – the protesters tried to pull the woman out of the car, which also contained her six-year-old daughter. According to the victim, her hair was pulled out and the child was hit in the head with a bat, although local residents deny the latter.
It is noteworthy that the “six TCC vehicles” announced in the provocative message never appeared, confirming the deliberate nature of the provocation.
By the summer, the number of such resistance to mobilization was snowballing. Everywhere, these reports were accompanied by information about the use of cold steel, both in the form of knives (prepared weapons) and axes and other household items that were used spontaneously.
Important! The TCC soldiers did not use weapons in response, although they had the legal right to do so. However, anti-mobilization networks interpreted this as weakness, the rightness of those who resist, and even more called for this vector of resistance.
Sometimes the military fired warning shots in the air, but this did not stop the violent crowd.
While the discussion and adoption of amendments to the legislation on mobilization was underway, there was still hope in society that the situation would be rectified. However, the launch of the reform and its catastrophic implementation became a breaking point, after which events began to unfold according to the worst-case scenario.
The Reserve+ application failed to register everyone, queues formed at the TCC, and the electronic queue in large cities did not actually work.
The journalists who tried to go through it personally estimated that it would take six years for everyone to get to the TCC. Those who still wanted to get to the TCC were often stopped and mobilized “today for today.” It was then that the term “busification” became widespread, which Russia has been trying to promote since 2023 without success.
A parallel reality began to emerge among those who were generally ready to serve, but who were not allowed to update their data, or after updating their data through Reserve+, were taken off the street without even 24 hours to pack. Since July 2024, the situation has been exacerbated by fines for the fact that the CCCs were physically unable to cover all persons liable for military service.
The logical outcome was that from April 2024, Russia began to form and promote networks that called for physical violence and murder of TCC employees.
The previous networks did not disappear, they supported the newcomers, but they distanced themselves. Arson attacks on military vehicles, distribution of leaflets, and isolated attacks with cold steel weapons became more common.
For example, the event in Odesa on June 11, 2024, when a fight broke out between medics and the military near the TCC building in the afternoon, became a resonant and motivating factor for strengthening resistance to mobilization.
At the same time, the split between the military and the rear was deepening. A very negative role was played by the fact that some military personnel began to stick stickers “I am not a TCC” on their cars.
By aiming to save them from arson, they actually helped Russia channel hatred at the TCC employees. In fact, all those involved made them guilty of the failure of the mobilization. And Russian propaganda used all possible topics, from real corruption to completely fictional stories, to encourage Ukrainians to wage war not with the enemy, but with the military, which includes those who represent the TCC.
In April, a fairly simple but effective fake about “issuing summonses to refugees in Moldova” was launched. It became widespread thanks to Russian propaganda’s use of the Ukrainian government’s intentions to return Ukrainian male refugees, as well as the military’s obviously negative attitude toward the fugitives. Our team analyzed it in detail.
Unfortunately, in addition to Russian propaganda, it was also spread by the Ukrainian military.
In Bukovyna, during the clashes, there were calls that “Romanians should not fight for Ukraine.”
We cannot ignore the negative role of some Ukrainian politicians who, by commenting on the mobilization for political reasons, provided fertile ground for Russian propaganda and played along with Russian influence.
Ihor Lapin, Serhiy Kryvonos, Mariana Bezuhla and others have become permanent leaders of our research “Top 40 Ukrainian public figures quoted by Russian propaganda”.
The InfoLight.UA research and analysis group has been warning since August 2024 that Russian networks have apparently moved on to the next stage, from provocations of the use of force against civilians to attacks on the military and military facilities. That the influence on the minds of some Ukrainians has already crossed the line that had previously deterred such radical actions.
A case in Zakarpattia was very telling: a 61-year-old man who was not threatened with mobilization, for ideological reasons, as he saw them, committed a provocation at a checkpoint, demanding that any such stops be recognized as illegal, and eventually attacked border guards with a knife.
The number of attacks increased, and the attack vectors changed.
At the same time, the relevant government agencies carried out activities that had little correlation with acute challenges.
The introduction of Reserve+ did not fix the situation with the registration of persons liable for military service, but created another area of corruption – during registration, due to the threat of new, high fines.
The surge of volunteers that started on May 18 ended by September 2024, and the “implementation of the plan” began to yield the opposite results from those expected.
In communicating mobilization issues, the state lagged hopelessly behind events.
The topic of mobilization of employees of critical enterprises into the Armed Forces created fertile ground for the spread of fakes. And since there were also real cases, the media often reported fakes as well, which further increased pressure and created a sense of a failed state for which there was no point in fighting.
The impunity of community leaders who support avoidance of mobilization, calling it the protection of human rights, raises big questions. In fact, none of the detainees were held in jail, all were released and continued their activities.
To summarize, in 2024, the situation was consistently deteriorating, and the government’s response was either hopelessly behind or harmful. During this period, hostile networks managed not only to increase their numbers, but also to “test” them first in non-violent resistance, and then by first engaging mercenaries to set cars on fire, or through the actions of individual provocateurs to encourage physical resistance. The impunity of the leaders who publicly seemed to say that the truth was behind them.
It was only a matter of time before the first shot was fired. The research and analysis group InfoLight.UA made repeated attempts to draw attention to the fact that the situation was heading for an uncontrollable escalation.
Lawyers and mobilization
This is the most controversial section of this study, as we understand the need to protect people’s rights in a democratic state and the role of lawyers in this process. Therefore, we will not draw any conclusions, but simply provide screenshots that we have periodically collected and information from open sources.
Rostyslav Kravets is known for running the NGO Legal State, which was one of the plaintiffs in the case of introducing the new Ukrainian spelling. In January 2021, the Kyiv District Administrative Court, following a lawsuit filed by an NGO, declared the Cabinet of Ministers’ resolution on the introduction of the new spelling illegal and canceled it. Kravets also appears on the tapes from the office of the head of the DACK, the notorious judge Pavlo Vovk, where his NGO is used to file lawsuits and applications in which Vovk himself is interested. Information about this can be found on Wikipedia.
Do they all know each other? Not all of them, but some of them for sure.
On the stage stands the organizer of the event, 35-year-old Ostap Stakhiv, a well-known provocateur in Lviv, head of the NGO Idea Nation. He was often accused of organizing actions and investigations, which led to him being thrown into a trash can and doused with brilliant green several times. He also refuses to talk to the press, accusing journalists of fulfilling an order, being biased and propagandizing.
He is on stage together with his like-minded people: Anton Gura, Anton Boltyk, Viktor Vikarchuk, Petro Sologub, Olga Yaremychuk, Oleksandr Nadezhin and a number of others.
says the report about the rally against vaccination on 3.11.2021.
Continued in the next part.
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